


Babochka

by AlastorGrim



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Broke-It, Dubious Consent, Except I Didn't Fix It, Fearlings, Golden Army - Freeform, Jack Is A Damn Sass Master, Jack Meets Kozmotis, Memory Alteration, Mmm Darkness Doesn't Give A Shit About Your Feelings, Multi, Nightmares, Poor Jack, Poor Jack Frost, Possession, Sandy Is A Dad Friend, Time Travel Fix-It, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, YES I NEED THAT ONE TWICE, canon but not, really it's not, touch starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-10-13 03:11:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/pseuds/AlastorGrim
Summary: After the defeat of the Nightmare King, Pitch Black, Jack gets used to life as a guardian. But he’s still curious about the events that led up to it: who was Pitch? Why was he so set on taking over the world? Why was he the way that he was? Well, Manny decides that this time, Jack deserves answers. Even if those answers have disastrous consequences.





	1. Frosty The Snowman

“To the left, kid, keep up!” Jack crowed as he urged Jamie’s sled faster down its path through the trees. Jamie shrieked as he was spun around a sharp turn and down into a loop.

“Jack, where are we going?” Jamie hollered over the sound of wind rushing in his ears. 

“Wherever the wind takes us!” Jack called back with a laugh.

Or, that would’ve been the plan, had Jamie’s sled not decided that it’d had enough of being slung around, and broke with a resonating _crack_. Jamie yelped as his sled abruptly slumped to the left, the metal blade left behind on the ice track. Jack looked back, his eyes widened, and he hastily curved out the ice so that Jamie skidded off of it and landed harmlessly in a snow drift next a bare patch of earth.

The leg of the sled that had broken off soared off the track as well, whistled through the air near Jack’s hovering feet, and struck into the ground with a resonating _thwong_. It warbled back and forth for a moment, before Jack stilled it with the tip of his staff. Frost spiralled down the rusty metal in pretty patterns.

Jack looked over at the disturbed mound of snow to his left with a wince. “You okay, Jamie?”

There was a muffled reply, and then Jamie’s grinning visage popped up out of the snow. He shook his head to dislodge the flakes still nestled in his toboggan. “I think I need a new sled.”

“You think?” Jack laughed, relieved. He floated closer and helped Jamie unstick his now useless sled from the drift.

“Hey, Jack, where are we?”

Jamie’s voice sounded a bit off, but Jack wasn’t paying attention. “Somewhere around the pond, I think. A little past it, probably. Why?”

“Isn’t this where…” Jamie trailed off, and Jack looked up in confusion to see him pointing at the bare patch of dirt next them. Snow covered boards of wood lay all around it, a bit of headboard strewn next to a tree.

Jack went still.

He left the sled next to his ice track and floated forward, grip on his staff gone white-knuckled. Squinting suspiciously at the ground, he reached down and touched it with his toes. It crumbled beneath them, and Jack hurriedly scrambled backward. But nothing happened.

Brows furrowed, Jack hesitantly went closer once more. The dirt had fallen away where he’d touched it, but otherwise it seemed intact, if a bit spotty. The darkness beneath was yawning, impenetrable. He shuddered.

He flew quickly back and hiked up Jamie’s sled. “C’mon Jamie, let’s get out of here.”

The brunet gnawed on his lip with his gapped teeth and slowly followed after Jack. “...Can we make a snowman since my sled broke?”

“Buddy, I could make you an _army_ of snowmen, if you wanted.” Jack grinned down at him.

“Yeah! With top hats!”

“And carrot noses! I stole a bag last time I visited North.”

“Oh, what about the buttons?”

Jack shrugged and winked. “We’ll figure it out.”

Jamie beamed up at him, and Jack didn’t think of the crumbling entrance to Pitch’s lair again.

 

•❄️•

 

Jack flopped down on the topmost boughs of his favorite pine tree, exhausted. Jamie had run him ragged almost all day, but Jack couldn’t find it in him to complain. His still felt an inexplicable warmth blossom within his chest whenever Jamie grabbed his hand or hugged him or pulled on his hoodie. It felt nice to be seen.

Blue eyes blinked up at the sky, clear of clouds tonight, as the thin, distant tendrils of Sandy’s dreams began to snake across the sky.

Unwittingly, Jack’s mind wandered back to that morning, when he and Jamie had stumbled upon Pitch’s sealed up caves. Well, obviously not so ‘sealed up’ anymore.

Jack recalled how he’d chased Pitch’s shadow across the labyrinth of stairs and walkways as the man had dug around in Jack’s greatest fears, slowly taking him apart with words until Jack was so distracted that Pitch finished his move on Easter.

Rolling over on his branch, Jack shook his head and frowned. Well, he wouldn’t be getting any sleep _now_. He sat up, grabbed his staff, and flew up and over towards the field where he and Jamie had made snowmen earlier. It was glistening with little white footprints, softened by another inch of fresh power. In the middle sat seven and a half snowmen in varying stages of build and decay.

There were a few that looked like normal snowmen, of course, but a few had lost heads or melted halfway and then frozen again once the sun had gone down. It left them lopsided, deformed.

Jack swooped down and perched lightly on top of his favorite one—the tallest, with a crown made out of crooked holly twigs. The wind blustered under the sleeves of his hoodie playfully as he spread out his arms for balance and walked laps around the tips of the stick-crown. 

A cloud passed above, blocking out the light for a moment. Jack tensed, didn’t dare breathe until the clouds had moved and the light was back. Licking his lips, Jack tilted his head slowly back and locked his eyes onto the Moon. Frost curled anxiously on his staff. He bit his lip.

“Hi.” He finally managed after a moment, awkward and a bit strangled. 

Things with the Man in the Moon had always been complicated. Less so after becoming a Guardian, Jack had thought, but it turned out that becoming a Guardian didn’t just magically solve all of his problems. Feelings like abandonment, uselessness, betrayal, helplessness, desolation; after about three centuries of stewing in them, they didn’t just...go away. It wasn’t like the Man in the Moon had ever actually answered him directly. He had been told his name was Jack Frost. That was it. Occasionally there would be faint inklings, like distant emotions, a nudge in a certain direction, an urge to do something he normally wouldn’t. But that was very hard to call that ‘communication’.

Jack swallowed and knocked the crook of his staff into the holly branches. Icicles cracked out from between them, like little, spiky, crown jewels. “We haven’t talked in a while. Well, _I_ haven’t talked to _you_ in awhile. Don’t know why I’m doing it now, if I’m honest. I guess I’m just,” Jack blew out a breath and ran his hand through his wild hair. “Curious.”

The world around him abruptly sharpened, and a slight flicker of indulgence flitted through his chest. Jack tightened his jaw and clutched his staff with both hands. It felt like the Moon was listening. 

Maybe he always listened, and just didn’t care, or didn’t bother to answer. But this felt different. 

A flash of old bitterness stung Jack’s ribs for a moment—‘ _Really? Now?_ ’—before he shrugged it off and focused on the task at hand. What that task was however, he wasn’t sure he really knew.

“If we protect the children from Pitch, then why do we even need him? Who made him? Did you make him? I mean, that sounds kinda counterproductive, but hey…” Jack trailed off, uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot absently. “What I mean is—I know there has to be fear in the world, I know that, I _do_. But why does there have to be someone for it? I mean, it’s not like there’s a guardian of sadness, and we still have that, so it’s not like there needs to be an actual _person_ for it, right? Why bridge that gap? Why make it so dangerous? And why—” Jack’s breath hitched and cut himself off abruptly. 

‘ _Why make him so much like me?_ ’

He couldn’t ask that. He wouldn’t. Because, in the end, Jack wasn’t anything like Pitch. Jack had chosen the right side. He didn’t want to force people to see him, or love him, or believe in him. That was the difference between him and Pitch. Jack believed in people’s right to choose, their free will. And Pitch clearly did not.

But that desperation, that...loneliness.

Not that deep down, if Jack stopped denying it for a minute and let himself _feel_ , he pitied Pitch. To be alone for so long that you just stopped caring, well, even Jack’d had his moments.

Jack had constantly felt like he was balancing on a precipice of wanting people to see him, and _making_ people see him. Had Jack been just a bit more inclined, a bit more bitter, he would have taken Pitch’s offer in Antarctica. It made his stomach twist to think of it now, but the truth was that he would have. He understood what it felt like to feel the way Pitch had felt. Sometimes he thought of the Nightmare King, down there in his caves, all alone with only his Nightmares and Shadows to talk to (and Jack didn’t imagine they were compelling company), and didn’t feel vindication, or anger, or satisfaction. He just felt that choking, overwhelming _sympathy_.

Shaking strands of white out of his vision, Jack took a shaky breath and banished those thoughts from his mind. “I get that I ask you a lot of questions, but I need to know. I’ve tried asking the others, but they won’t talk to me. Or, well, Sandy tries to, but I can’t understand him half the time.” He gazed up at the moon, feeling raw and exposed. “Am I...bad, for wanting to know him? For feeling sorry for him? For understanding him? Is that wrong? Am I wrong?” The tone lilted up at the end, desperate, searching.

Jack stood tensed on the tips of his toes for a long time, but no answer came. After so many years of silence, he thought the crushing weight of disappoint would have faded, but he just thought that, since he was Guardian now, that maybe the Man in the Moon _had_ to answer him. That maybe he would _want_ to.

But apparently not.

Pursing his lips, Jack rocked back onto his heels. He rasped out a breathy, humorless laugh, and hopped up onto the winds. “Yeah. I don’t know what I was expecting.”

It wasn’t angry. No, Jack wasn’t as angry at the Moon as he had been. He wasn’t angry, he was just...tired. Very tired. Frustration and exhaustion did not make a very good combination, however. So Jack hopped up on the winds and turned away from the Moon.

He flew away, back to his tree before he could say something that he would later regret. He left to go try and sleep some more, leaving a very frosty snowman behind him.


	2. Emma

Jack was woken by the sound of wind whistling in his ears. Fat flakes of snow pittered against his face and the world had gone abruptly gray and dark. The wind around him was not the wind he knew. It rough and unfriendly, demanding. Jack knew a blizzard when he saw one—he'd even ridden a few before—but this didn't feel like a normal blizzard. It cut at his skin and bullied him from his tree branch into the air. 

"Whoa, hey!" Jack yelped. He tried to call the winds to him, to calm them down, waved his staff to try and abate the wicked snow. Nothing worked. It was like his powers were gone, and he was just as vulnerable to the harsh blades of winter as anyone else.

For the first time in years, he felt cold. 

He went pinwheeling through the air, his staff clutched to his chest for dear life as the trees vanished in a swirl of white and gray, the air around him thinning rapidly as the wind howled and shoved him up beyond his normal altitudes. Jack spread out the rest of his limbs to try and balance, but even that was denied him. 

Then, as abruptly as the storm had swept him up, he was spat back out in the middle of it. There was no air here. Just a vacuum of space with a swirling, raging wall of ice and snow on every side. It wasn't a blizzard. It was a _hurricane_.

The eye of the storm.

A very, very long way down, there was a pool of molten gold shining brightly, like coins in the bottom of a well. If Jack looked up, he could see the impenetrable blackness of the sky, multicolored stars dotted amongst it. Jack blew out an awed breath—and then he was falling.

He let out a startled yell as he began to plummet down towards the pool of gold, staff still curled against his chest. His fingers turned white knuckled and he screamed as the pool gushed up to meet him. 

What even _was_ that? What was in it? What was _through_ it? Would Jack even be able to get himself out of it? Would it kill him? Could he even die? 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and curled into a protective ball, screams snathed away by the vacuum of space around him, and plunged into the brilliant depths of gold.

 

•❄️•

 

It was...warm. Very warm. Little hands were patting at his cheeks, and a faint, high voice rang in his ears. 

"Hello? Mister, hello? You're laying on my tulips! Wake up please!"

Jack groaned and his eyes fluttered open, then squinted to diminish the amount of light beaming into his eyes. Why was everything so bright? Jack held up a hand to shield himself from the light above him, and he blinked black spots out of his vision until he could make out his surroundings. A pair of bright green eyes stared down at him, a mane of black curls with flowers woven in framed a small, rounded face, severe eyebrows pulled down to display their irritation.

"Finally! Get up please," She snapped testily. She patted his face again, as if to get him moving.

"W-Where..." Jack struggled into a sitting position and shook his head. He blinked owlishly at the small girl in front of him. "Who are you?"

"I could ask you the same question, mister," She huffed and crossed her arms. Jack saw that she had a flowing white dress, grass and dirt stains smeared all over the hem and knees. The flowers in her hair weren't of any geneus Jack had ever seen, some glowing in color he didn't even know existed. She couldn't have been more than seven.

"I'm—My name is Jack. Jack Frost." He managed after a moment. 

He looked around and found himself in the middle of a large field. Pathes of flowers Jack both did and did not recognize poked up through the greenest grass he'd ever seen. It looked like Bunny's warren, just _brighter_. Jack didn't even know that was possible.

The girl tipped her head at him, eyes curious. "Jack Frost? That's a funny name."

Jack laughed breathlessly, "Tell me about it."

Lips pursed, the child seemed to think over something, before glaring at him once more and shifting on bare, antsy feet. "I'll tell you mine if you get off my tulips."

Startled, Jack looked down and yelped when he found several crushed bulbs of pink and yellow below him. He fumbled for his staff, which had conveniently landed—did he land here? Thrown here? Dropped here?—next to him. His heart calmed at the familiar feeling of it clutched in his hands, and he lept up into the air. He was almost disproportionately relieved when the wind answered his call, the vicious winds of the blizzard fresh in his mind.

Green eyes widened as he floated away from the smushed tulips and over to a fairly bare path of grass. He touched down and marveled at how soft it was. He looked up at the little girl with a smile.

"...My name is Emily Jane, but everyone calls me Emma. Emily Jane is too long and pro—preton—pretendous." She said at last with a small nod to herself at the end.

"Pretentious?" Jack tried, amused. Emily—Emma—scowled at him. He laughed. "Well, Emma, would you mind telling me where I am?"

"You don't know?" Emma raised an eyebrow, incredulous.

Jack shook his head. He cast his gaze around to see, off in the distance, the tell-tale signs of a city cresting the horizon. It looked odd, like the stretch of New York but with loops, arches, and spires Jack hadn't seen since his last visit to the Kremlin.

Emma let out a huff, but her face smoothed out. "You're on the edges of Lune. That's the capital, where you're looking. This is just my garden."

"Lune? I've never heard of any city called Lune. And I'm pretty sure I've been everywhere." Jack said dubiously.

"No, the city's not called Lune! Well, it technically is, but no. The _planet_ is called Lune." Emma's brow furrowed once more. "What do you mean you've never heard of Lune? Everybody's heard of Lune!"

"Obviously not, 'cause I haven't." Jack retorted, only to pause and go even paler than he already was. "Wait, did you say planet? I'm on another _planet_?" His voice abruptly shot up an octave.

Emma rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Where did you think you were?"

"Somewhere on Earth!" Jack clutched at his hair, eyes wild as the wind picked up around him. 

The temperature dropped quickly, and Emma shivered. She blinked at Jack, eyes curious and wary. "How are you doing that?"

Jack looked up at the sky, which was a deep navy blue, a few faint speckles of silver along it. Stars. "What?" He asked, distracted. 

Emma picked her way over the grass and between flowers to tug insistently on his hoodie. "The wind, and the white things in your hair and on your tunic. What is that? How are you doing it?"

That snapped Jack out of his mini panic attack. Blue met green and Jack saw that Emma was pointing to the spirals of frost coating his pockets and the bits of snow drifting around him in the swirling winds. He caught some of them in his hands and placed them into Emma's. "You mean the snow?"

"Snow," Emma breathed, awed. She cupped the snowflakes delicately and stared at them like they were diamonds instead of ice. "I've heard about snow. We don't get it on Lune, because it's too hot here. Daddy told me about it though, when he came back from one of his missions. Said he'd been to a planet that was covered in it, with the natives covered in extra layers fat and fur to keep warm. I didn't think it would be so pretty." She murmured, entranced. 

"You don't get snow here?" Jack was surprised. He bit his lip and kicked back up into the air, off the grass. "That might be a problem." He grumbled. 

The flakes began to melt in Emma's palm, and he expression was so crestfallen that Jack reached forward and touched a finger to her knuckles. Frost spread over her fingers, crested over her wrist, and swirled up her arm. She gasped softly. "It's cold!"

Jack chuckled and tapped the other hand, until she was sporting matching gloves of icy lace. "Yeah. Snow's not very good for flowers, though." 

Emma abruptly lifted her hands above her head and looked down over her garden, alarmed. Jack laughed.

"Frost is okay. It can actually help sometimes. Here, look," Jack floated back down to the ground and squat down next to a patch of springy, glowing orange flowers. He bounced on his toes a bit, excited, and waited until Emma was beside him to reach forward and touch the bulb. Frost encased it, raced down the fiery spiral of petal, and dimmed it. "In the winter, when it gets really, really cold, the frost will freeze over the flowers and the grass to keep the warmth trapped inside the planets, so the cold can't snatch it away so easily. It keeps them heavy, and very hard to break with heavy snow." He explained.

"And when it melts, it provides moisture to the flowers as well," Emma reasoned, shifting her feet again. 

"Exactly!" Jack laughed, his grin bright.

Emma hummed and met his grin with a small smile of her own. Her face had softened. "So what does the snow do?"

Jack pressed his pinky into a patch of grass and absently watched as it began to glitter with ice. "Nothing really. It's just what happens when the water in the clouds gets too cold. It turns into ice and sticks together, then gets heavy and falls down to the ground."

Little hands cupped the frosted flower, "So it's just water? Frozen water?" She sounded disappointed. "But it's so pretty! And you can fly, and control it, right?"

Confused, Jack hesitated. "Yes?" 

"So it is magic, just a little bit, right?"

"I suppose," Jack answered, surprised. He didn't know why it was such a big deal. Emma looked satisfied though, so Jack guessed it didn't matter. 

"Emily! It's getting late." A familiar voice rang over the field. 

Jack frowned. He was sure he'd heard it somewhere before, but it was just different enough that he couldn't put a voice to a face. Emma shot to her feet, a bright grin on her face. Jack wracked his brain and she darted off to the side, but came up with nothing.

"Daddy! Over here!" Emma cried as she bolted between patches of flowers and colorful bushes like a pro. 

Jack yelped and scrambled up and into the air to chase after her. "Hey, wait a minute, where are you—"

He flew head over heels as he tried to skid to a stop in midair. He tumbled to a stop just before Emma and the man in front of her. Jack gawked, stunned. He traced his way from Emma's bare feet over too-green grass to the hem of a golden, ornamental coat, silver and black embroidery sewn in small galaxies and spinning planets and suns all along the bottom and trailing up the seams to spread across the chest. In the shadow of the impressive display, Jack could see a faint glint of metal attached to the hip of black slacks. 

Jack drew his eyes up to meet brilliant, golden eyes. He was looking right into the face of one Pitch Black. Who was currently scowling death at him.

Jack was in trouble.


	3. The Warden and The Palace

Emma bounded forward and threw her arms around Pitch’s waist. “Daddy, I made a friend.”

“I can see that,” Pitch gruffed, his posture stiff. His skin was no longer a dark shade of gray, but a healthy peach. His eyes, which Jack remembered as being a dar shade of fool’s gold, were now the pure and bright hue of aurum. 

Jack stared.

Pitch’s eyes narrowed even further at him, and Emma seemed to sense the thick tension trembling in the air. She squeezed Pitch’s waist. “His name is Jack! He was helping me with my flowers.”

A gloved hand wrapped around Emma’s shoulders and tugged her closer, protective. “Was he now?”

Grip gone white-knuckled on his staff, Jack swallowed and floated backwards, jittery. “Uh, actually I was just leaving.”

“And how did you get in here, pray tell?” Pitch asked cooly.

“He fell out of the sky!” Emma exclaimed, her heels bouncing in excitement. Then she stopped abruptly. “Well, he fell on my tulips, but he said he was sorry, so I guess it’s okay. He can make snow, Daddy! It’s really pretty, you never told me how pretty it was.” She accused, but she was bouncing again, so Jack felt that it was half-hearted.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go,” Jack blurted out when Pitch’s eyes widened. He turned and flew off towards the faint outline of the city in the distance, racing over the flowers so quickly they blurred beneath him.

“Aw!”

“Wait! Are you—?”

Jack ignored them both and pushed himself faster. Their voices faded behind him, and the panic in his chest grew less choking, less deafening the farther he got from them.

It was Pitch. But it also...wasn’t Pitch. Pitch didn’t wear gold coats, Pitch didn’t carry a sword. Pitch didn’t have a daughter.

Jack was obviously hallucinating. He’d fallen in the storm and smacked his head or something. Maybe he’d fallen into an alternate dimension. Maybe he’d died. Yeah, that made much more sense.

He needed answers. He needed a way to get off of this planet—Lune—and back to Earth. Hopefully, hallucination or not, someone in the city would be able to help him. If Emma was any indication, people would be able to see him here, so that cut down on his problems a bit.

Heart rabbiting against his ribs, Jack broke over the edge of the garden and tumbled over the fields of tall grass. The wind was warm and strange, different from the wind he played with on Earth, but not unpleasant. This wind was foreign, but friendly. It buffeted at his sides playfully and swept him up higher into the air to help him along. It soothed over the jumpy nervousness that seeing Pitch had caused. It wasn’t as if he had been overly threatening, which was weird in and of itself, but Jack supposed that it had just jarred him. 

Everything was different here. Nothing seemed real.

It took him a while to reach the city, and despite the lack of sun, the planet was warm and filled with natural light. It made Jack feel sluggish, sleepy. When he reached the city, he stumbled to a stop in an alleyway just a few people dressed in fancy gold and black robes (much like Pitch’s) were walking past. The buildings were oddly shiny—pearlescent in a way. Jack didn’t want to touch the walls, afraid to smudge them.

The two people who had been walking by stopped and turned to stare at him. Jack waved half-heartedly, swaying. “Um, hi? Could you tell me where I might find a phone here? Maybe a portal, or something? It seems like you guys would have that sort of thing.”

A woman with ginger hair wound up in a severe bun raised an eyebrow at him, mouth twisted. A younger girl with mousy brown hair just stared, perplexed. The woman stepped forward, a hand on her side where Jack assumed a sword rested. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Jack,” He did an awkward salute with two fingers and shifted his weight nervously. “I’m thinking maybe you can’t help me.”

“I never said that,” The woman huffed, but she took her hand off her sword and fisted it by her side.

“Oh, are we going to report him to the Tsar?” The girl crowed, excited.

Jack took a step back, alarmed. The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _No_ , Taylan, we are not. We’re going to introduce him.”

Taylan grinned and ducked her head in a way that looked like half a shrug. “That’s basically the same thing.”

“You’re not from here, are you?” The woman asked him instead, ignoring Taylan.

Jack looked between them suspiciously and leaned back. “What gave it away?”

She nodded to his sweatshirt. “I know ice when I see it. We don’t get much of it here, especially around the capital. I’m assuming that’s what you were rambling on about before? A way home?”

He blinked, tipped his head. “Yeah, actually, that’d be great. If I meet with this...Tsar of yours, they’ll send me home?”

“We’ll see what he can do.” She turned and swept back towards the mouth of the alley, then paused to look over her shoulder at him. “You might want to put your feet back on the ground. Our natives can’t fly outside of airships.”

Jack coughed and let the wind drop him back onto his heels. Taylan beamed at him as he approached, sleeves too big as she reached up to push a lock of hair out of her face. 

“Oh boy. This’ll be interesting.”

 

•❄️•

 

It turned out that Taylan and Warden Rega—the older woman—were members of Lune’s Golden Army, as Taylan boasted to him on the walk to the castle. Golden Soldiers. Was that what Pitch was? This world’s Pitch, at least?

Jack jolted out of his thoughts as they reached a large set of double doors made completely out of gold. He swallowed, mouth dry. _Damn_.

The castle was huge. Marble steps and pearl pillars, colors of every shade shining from the rows of windows above them like beacons. Statues made of prismed glass stood spouting water on either side of the large set of gates that led into the palace. 

The huge golden doors were drawn open with a loud, shrill creak, and Jack clenched his jaw. He was abruptly very aware that he was barefoot, in an old hoodie and worn trews. If nothing else, he would stand out. 

Warden Rega spoke to a man just inside the gates in a hushed tone, who nodded and scurried off down one of the three halls that branched out of an immaculate foyer. Jack swung his staff up to lay it across his shoulders. “So, do you guys get many crash-landing aliens from different planets around here?”

Cool gray eyes with a rim of gold bored into him as the doors closed behind them. “Not by yours standards, I’m sure.”

“Say, are you running from someone?” Taylan drawled as she sidled up close to Jack. She grinned. “You a vagabond? A criminal? Or a nomad?”

“All three,” Jack replied without looking at her, distracted. He felt like someone was watching him. On instinct, he whipped his head to the right, wide blue eyes catching on a pair of glowing silver ones. Hidden by the shadows, the eyes widened and then blinked out existence. Jack stared, bewildered.

“Missus Warden Rega. They will see you.” The man from earlier was back, bowing low at the waist.

“Excellent,” Warden Rega murmured, then she glanced at Jack, eyes narrowed, and jerked her head. “Come. Follow me.”

Jack skidded his heels across the floor as he floated after her. They walked through a lavish hallway with arches curved over the ceiling and colored windows spaced unevenly between them. Jack nearly ran into Taylan’s back when they stopped in front of yet another set of doors. Warden Rega pushed them open and strode in without another glance backwards.

Taylan glanced back at Jack, giggled, and skipped in after her. Well, he was _very_ confident now. This was going to go terribly.

The floor faded from pearled marble into obsidian, glints of gold flecked within the sea of slick black. Jack floated a little higher, not wanting to touch it. He looked up to see Warden Rega bowing before a dias of three thrones, all made out of gold and colored glass.

Were these people _rolling_ in money? Jack snorted at himself.

Sat in the middle throne was a tall, broad man with neat black hair and amber eyes, his features sharp and thin. He had crows feet at the corners of his eyes and a dimple on his right cheek from the large smile he was wearing. Next to him, a woman with copper colored curls and similarly colored eyes sat, expression curious. She was staring openly at Jack.

Jack kept his eyes on her, wary, until he reached Warden Rega’s side. She straightened and glanced at him pointedly.

“Oh, shit, am I supposed to bow?”

Taylan giggled again, hysterical. Warden Rega looked very much like she wanted to cover her face, but she resisted. Instead she stepped forward and sighed. 

“Your Majesties, I present Jack Frost. He is a snow elemental who seems to have accidentally landed here. He said that he seeks a way back to his home planet.”

“And which planet would that be?” The man in the middle—the Tsar—inquired politely.

“Earth, Your, uh, Your Highness.” Jack replied, head tipped.

The Tsar flicked his eyes down to Jack’s feet, which were curled up off the ground by a foot or so, then back up to his face, eyes bright. “I’ve heard of Earth, in passing. It is a very long way away from here. However did you make the trip?”

Jack wasn’t about to start spouting off junk about magic blizzards and pools of liquid gold, so he shrugged and stammered out a bewildered, “I-I don’t really know. One minute, I was going to sleep in my t—bed, the next thing I know I wake up here.”

A gloved hand rubbed at a sharp jaw, brow furrowed. “Well that is certainly a predicament.” He glanced at the woman beside him and sighed, face fallen. “I’m afraid I don’t have the resources to send you back to Earth at this time. The trip itself would take two years at the least, and that’s with our fastest ship. We don’t have enough men to send with you to pilot either. I’m sorry, Jack, but it seems that you are stuck with us for the time being.”

 _Two years? At the least?_

Jack swallowed. “Um, well, that sucks. But it’s not that big a deal, I’m sure that I can manage.”

“You are welcome to stay in the palace, if you’d like. We don’t get many foreign visitors these days. We would consider it an honor to have you.” The woman Jack was going to guess was the Tsarina said. 

“Thank you, ma’am. I would, uh, w-would be very grateful to stay.” Jack murmured. He felt abruptly very awkward, very aware of how tense the room could have gotten had he protested. 

“Wonderful! Apoÿo will show you to your room.” She gestured to a man standing beside the dias, who Jack hadn’t even seen. 

He stepped forward, his hair as golden as the sun, and bowed slightly to Jack. “If you would, Mister Frost.”

Jack glanced at Warden Rega, but she wasn’t looking at him. He gave a mental shrug and flew forward to idle beside Apoÿo. “Just Jack is fine. Lead the way.”

He inclined his head then swept forward towards the doors, Jack having to surge to keep up with him. 

“Geez, you move _fast_.”

Apoÿo didn’t answer him, but he did give Jack a faint smile as they twisted out of the throne room and down a narrower hall that branched off the grand one they had come through before. Small sconces filled with flittering blue lights lined the walls for light, as there were no windows here. Apoÿo led him through twists and turns and a few flights of stairs both going up and down, so that by the time he stopped in front a small door in a lone, quiet hall, Jack felt so dizzy that he knew he could never get out of the place on his own.

It reminded him absurdly of the Winchester house in the United States, and the crazy lady who built stairs to cliffs and doors to nowhere. Jack shook his head, amused and slightly perturbed.

Apoÿo opened the door for him, and Jack slid inside to look around. It was a simple room, far from the lavishness of the rest of the palace, and Jack found himself slightly relieved to not be placed in a room dripping with wealth. He would probably end up breaking something priceless, like a family heirloom or the Tsar’s favorite vase or something.

The room wasn’t small, a sitting room cut out in the space beside the bedroom, and a door to what Jack was going to guess was the bathroom on the other side. The dresser was some dark wood, and the couches were velvet, but they seemed to be the only expensive things—besides the massive _six-poster bed_ —in the room.

Jack dropped down and let his feet touch the floor with an appreciative whistle. “Nice.”

“Dinner will be brought to you shortly, as you must be exhausted from your ordeal. You will have breakfast with the Royal Majesties tomorrow morning, someone will come to fetch you.” Apoÿo explained calmly, unmoved by Jack’s grin.

“Cool. I don’t really need to eat, but cool.”

Apoÿo turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Jack let his grin drop and sagged his weight against his staff. 

He ran a hand through his hair. “Two years. It takes two years to get from here to Earth.” He clutched at his hair and grit his teeth. “Then how the hell did _I_ get here?”

Nobody answered him. 

It seemed, to Jack, that asking questions he would never get the answers to was something between him and the Moon. He wondered idly if the Moon could still hear him from here if he yelled. 

Not that it would matter, of course. The Moon never answered him anyway.


	4. Out of Place and Underdressed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!! HAVE THIS LONG ASS CHAPTER!!!

Jack, in true Jack fashion, had ignored the large, comfortable looking mattress completely, and tied the curtains for the bed together until he had a hammock dangling almost ten feet above the ground. 

Jack had never liked sleeping close to the ground. He always woke feeling off balanced and strange, and the wind was harder to control, like it was offended he had spent the night away from it.

He woke that morning feeling odd anyway, but he was going to attribute that to the fact that he was sleeping on a different planet.

A servant had indeed brought him dinner, and Jack was amused to see that it was mostly cold things. Iced water, cucumber soup, some weird black gelatin with some sort of fruit Jack had never seen before jiggling in the middle. There was also a basket of seeded rolls, which Jack made great use of by trying to see if he could catch them in his mouth if he dropped them from his hammock.

The same servant that had delivered his food the night before came to get him in the morning. It was a small woman, her head ducked shyly as she offered to lead Jack to the dining hall. He could see her sneaking glimpses of him from behind her hair every minute or so though, so he knew she was curious. 

The way to the dining hall was just as confusing and convoluted as the way to his room had been. Jack resigned himself to burning to death should a fire ever start in the wing of the palace he was staying in. 

A sudden, fierce ache shot through Jack’s chest, and he grimaced. Jamie would have appreciated that joke. 

The woman stopped just before a large arcing doorway that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere when Jack wasn’t looking. “We’re h-here, Mister Frost.”

“It’s just Jack,” He offered again with a smile, but she just hunched in on herself further and hummed. He gnawed at his bottom lip and gave her an awkward thumbs up. “Well, thanks then. I would have been lost without you.”

She glanced up then, and Jack got a glimpsed of wide gray eyes beneath a protective curtain of hair. She unfurled a bit, a tiny smile on her lips. Inclining her head, she turned and walked past him for the other side of the hall.

Jack blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Here goes nothing,” He grumbled, then straightened his shoulders and rounded the arch with purpose.

The floor of the dining hall was the same obsidian ore of the throne room, and stepping on it made Jack’s feet tingle. He didn’t know what it was, but something about the floor unsettled him. It looked like a yawning chasm of darkness was opening up beneath him, the glints of gold like faraway pinpricks of light just outside his reach. Should it swallow him, he would be lost to oblivion forever. Forgotten. An old fear.

A stupid fear, yes. But nonetheless, it was a _present_ fear.

“Good morning, Jack! I trust you slept well?” 

“Huh?” Jack’s head snapped up from the floor to meet the bright gaze of the Tsar. He blinked and stopped at the opposite end of the table, which was laden with exotic foods and fancy stemware. “Oh, yeah. Thanks again, you know, for letting me stay here.”

“It was the least we could do,” The Tsarina said from her spot to the Tsar’s right, where she was nursing a swaddled baby. The liquid in the bottle she was holding didn’t look like milk. Jack decided to let it go. He had enough questions as it were.

“Indeed,” The Tsar murmured, expression fallen grim. “I’m afraid that you’ve stumbled upon us in hard times, Jack. These are dark days.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, incredulous. He gave a discreet glance at the room, decorated as much of the palace was: in gold and pearls and color. 

_Hard times_?

As if hearing his thoughts, the Tsar nodded. “In our brightest days, it would have been no issue to send you home immediately. We would have had ships—and soldiers—to spare. But we have not had that luxury in a long time.” At Jack’s curious look, he smiled bleakly. “You see, Lune has been at war with a force of great evil for a very long time, Jack. It haunts the atmosphere of our home and the chokes out the light of the stars for many others. It lurks in stretches of deep space, strikes out at any who try to pass it, consumes everything in its path. However you arrived here, Jack, you are very lucky to have arrived unscathed.”

A chill crawled up Jack’s spine. He sat slowly down in the highback chair, his feet folded up off the floor and into his lap. “Sounds like it. What exactly are you fighting? What can do stuff like that?”

“It’s called the Living Darkness, but it’s just one name for an amalgam of a great many horrors. It is a mass of shadows, fearlings, and nightmare men, all of which share a hive mind with a single goal—consume everything.” The Tsar let that hang in the air for a moment, heavy, tense, before cutting up a piece of meat neatly with his fork. The tension broke. “Our Golden Army are those born with a particular ability to call on the opposite force; the Living Light. We’ve managed to beat the darkness back, keep it from devouring us and a few others, but it grows stronger everyday. It seems that widening our reach is all we can do for now.”

“Darling, that’s enough talk of doom and gloom at the breakfast table. You’ll give Mėnulis hiccups polluting the air with fear like that. And look at our poor guest! He’s gone pale! He could’ve gone on happily not knowing all of that,” The Tsarina scolded.

And while Jack was always pale, he did feel drained of blood. He felt his throat click as he swallowed. “No offense, Your Highness, but I’m fairly sure I know what your husband is talking about.”

Both the Tsar and Tsarina looked up at him sharply. Two pairs of amber eyes narrowed at him, the frivolous cheer that had been plastered over their faces before pulled back to reveal two haggard, fierce monarchs. Jack swallowed. The Tsarina blinked and her mask eased back over her face to soften her expression. “You know of the Living Darkness?”

“I didn’t know what it was called, but yeah. Me and a group of...friends, fought h— _it_ off before it could take over the world. But from what you said, it sounds like the Darkness is much weaker on Earth than it is here. On Earth, most magical things are powered by the belief of others or the Earth itself. I don’t think the Darkness there could leave, either, like you said it does to the others. I’m pretty sure it would’ve left by now if that were the case.”

“Are you saying that the Darkness was planetbound?” The Tsar looked stunned. “Nevermind the fact that the Darkness should not have been able to reach Earth with our forces, but to say that the gravitational force of the planet can overcome the will of the shadows—it’s unprecedented!”

Jack shrugged helplessly, “I’m just telling you what I think. It might not be planetbound, or whatever, but I don’t know it’s stayed if it isn’t.”

The Tsarina hummed as the baby began to fuss softly, little fists knotted in the blankets. “Darling, didn’t you have something else you wanted to tell our guest? Something that does not involve heavy topics?” 

The look she flashed her husband made him wither, whatever question he’d had on his tongue dying away. He coughed. Jack reached out and grabbed a muffin to shove in his mouth.

The Tsar folded his hands, mask firmly back in place as he cast Jack a winning smile. “Right! Jack, we’ve decided to host a dance in wake of your arrival. As we’ve said, it is very unusual for Lune to receive foreigners these days. Not to mention that it will help you get accustomed to our planet for the duration of your stay.”

Jack gracefully didn’t mention that he didn’t particularly _want_ to be there long enough to get accustomed to the planet, and instead reached for another muffin to avoid the awkward air waiting just outside their bubble of pleasantries. He nodded instead, head bowed. Having successfully swallowed down his complaints along with his mouthful of orange muffin, he lifted his head. “I, uh, don’t have any fancy clothes for it.”

“Oh, what you’re wearing is fine! There’s nothing like that on Lune, so you can play your outfit off as foreign fashion. Besides, I’m fairly sure that everyone will be too preoccupied by the fact that you’re a ice elemental to care much about your clothes.” The Tsarina waved a dismissive hand with a grin.

Before Jack could reply, the back of his neck prickled and his head snapped to the side just in time to catch a pair of bright eyes peering at him from the far side of the room. The same pair that had eyed him in the foyer. 

And just like the foyer, they widened, blinked, and vanished into nothing. Jack stared at the corner for a beat too long after they had disappeared. 

“...Yeah, okay. Sounds great, actually. I could use a distraction or two.”

“Wonderful!” The Tsar clapped his hands, both royals oblivious to Jack’s odd behavior. “I’m aware that you won’t be familiar with the castle just yet, so I’ll send Portia to fetch you again tomorrow before the dance.”

 _It’s tomorrow?_ Jack bit the exclamation back with far more tact than he’d ever known he could use.

The Tsarina swept back her chair and adjusted the baby at her shoulder. “Well, gentlemen, it is time for Mėnulis’ nap. Until the stars align, Jack Frost.”

At Jack’s confused look, the Tsar elaborated. “The sky in Lune is constantly rotating. Every night just before we lapse into a new day, the major and minor Chimaeram align into one constellation.”

Jack watched the Tsarina walked out of the room with her child, then turned a curious look back to the Tsar. “So it’s a saying. Like ‘see you later’?”

After a moment of thought, the Tsar nodded and went back to his food. “I suppose. Though it’s more of ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow’.”

“Well then, Your Highness,” Jack stood carefully and tipped back on his heels nervously. “Until the stars align.” He then turned on heel and fled the room. At the doorway, the Tsar’s voice caught him.

“You’re leaving? You’ve barely eaten!”

“I don’t actually need to eat, Your Highness.” Jack called back without turning around. He fled down the hall, hoping to get lost.

 

•❄️•

 

And get lost he did. Very, very lost.

Jack spent the entire day wandering the startlingly empty halls, opening doors, and trying valiantly to at least find a window to throw himself out of so he could try and find the room he was sleeping in again. 

It wasn’t until the light of the sky began to dim—there was no sun, just the multicolored stars that beamed down onto the city—that Jack finally found a window, only to have Apoÿo turn the corner and start at the sight of him. He tipped his head, eyes wide. “Mister Frost?”

“It’s Jack,” He said weakly, slumped against his staff.

“What are you doing here this late?” Apoÿo’s brow furrowed as he walked forward. Then he glanced around and his lips thinned, realization dawning in his face. He ducked his head and folded his arms behind himself. “Would you like me to show you back to your rooms?”

“Please,” Jack was beyond relieved.

Apoÿo bowed and stepped aside to gesture to the hallway to their left. With one last glance at the window—the walls felt so _suffocating_ —Jack followed him down the hall and back to the too big bedroom.

The dimming stars caught something in his chest, and Jack felt an odd lurch of sadness deep within himself. He grit his teeth, resentment high in his blood, and refused to acknowledge it.

Because Jack would rather swallow glass than admit that he missed the Moon.

Apoÿo showed him easily to his room, and Jack barely mumbled a thanks before he had flung himself up and into his makeshift hammock. Apoÿo eyed the contraption with a wary gaze, but merely sighed and clasped a hand around the doorknob. “Portia will come to collect you tomorrow in time for the dance. Please try not to wander off again before that time.”

Jack grunted an affirmative, eyes scrunched shut as he curled around his staff. He heard Apoÿo sigh again, and then the door clicked shut.

The silent softness of the room weighed heavily on his ears, and he began to hum low in his throat, just to disturb it. His head felt strange, his mouth dry. Jack fisted a hand in his hoodie, just over his heart, and scowled. 

“I do not _miss_ the fucking Moon,” He snarled to himself, frost spattered beneath his fingers in agitation.

Being around so many people that could see him just had him...confused. Yeah, that was it. He had been alone for _centuries_ because of the Moon, had sunk to depths that would have had the other Guardians cringing, just to get people to _see_ him. All because the Moon couldn’t be bothered with him.

This feeling of—of sadness was completely irrational! The tugging in his chest was just...planet sickness!

(Was that even a thing?)

Jack growled at himself and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

But as he drifted off to sleep, he could feel the weight of it heavy in his chest.

 

•❄️•

 

“Mister Frost?”

Jack groaned and blinked his eyes open slowly, only to let out a scream of surprise and flail right off his hammock at the sight of gray eyes staring right at him. He hit the ground with a dull thud and moaned, bones achey. 

The girl from yesterday, Portia, gasped and quickly clambered off the mattress to help him up. “I-I’m sorry! So sorry, Mister Frost! I-I-I just couldn’t reach and I c-climbed—”

“It’s Jack,” He wheezed out, strained, and sat up slowly as not to exacerbate the dull pain in his limbs. He flexed his hand and frowned. It wasn’t normally this easy for him to get hurt. Flying on the fickle wind had him falling from heights much greater than that all the time, with little to no injury. Sure, it didn’t feel _good_ , but it didn’t linger like this either.

“It’s fine. You just surprised me is all. You’re Portia, right?”

Jack hopped up and hung off his staff with his elbows, toes barely brushing the floor as Portia spluttered for a moment. “Y-Yes, I am. How d-d-did you—nevermind. I was told to c-come get you be-before the dance.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “They hold parties so early in the morning?”

Portia blinked at him, startled. “M-M-Mister Jack, it’s the afternoon.”

“WHAT,” Jack toppled off his staff, smacking into the floor again. He let out an ‘oof’. “Afternoon? I can’t have been asleep that long.” Jack gave Portia a dubious look.

“I-I’m sorry, Mister Jack—”

“Just Jack, please—”

“—But you have been. It’s a-already almost time for the d-da-dance. We really should get going.”

Pursing his lips, bewildered and more than a bit wary, Jack gave a slow nod. “Right. Okay then.” He ran his hand through his hair and stood aside with a weak, impish grin. “Shall we?”

Portia’s cheeks flooded pink, and her tremoring stature relaxed minutely, the hum that Jack hadn’t noticed building in her throat dying out almost abruptly. She bowed her head to let her hair hide her face once more and nodded. She scurried past him and into the hallway, a timid call thrown behind her, “This way…”

Jack followed after her, mind reeling. ‘ _What is happening to me?_ ’

Portia led Jack down the halls and up two staircases, and it was only then that they passed a window and Jack caught a glimpse of the perpetual starry sky outside. If Jack had learned anything about telling time in the two days he’d been here, then the brightness of the stars told him that it was indeed almost evening. He bit his lip and tore his eyes away.

The simplicity of the small stretch of palace where Jack was staying slowly faded into the normal, colorful opulence of the throne room, and Jack could hear the faint chatter of voices and tinkling music that grew steadily louder as they walked.

“So...are you going to be staying for the dance?” Jack asked idly, the strange quiet between them making his skin itch.

Portia jumped, her eyes flicking to him for a wild second before calming slightly. “N-No Mister Jack. I don’t p-pa-particularly like parties. My mother w-will be there, t-though.”

“Really? Who’s your mother?”

“S-She’s—”

“Ah, Jack, there you are!”

Jack jolted and whipped his head up to see the Tsarina sweeping towards them, her arms open in greeting. Her previous sky blue dress was gone, replaced by a sparkly gold and white gown that crinkled as she crushed Jack abruptly to her chest as she reached him. Jack sucked in a shocked breath, the solid weight of another person against him, the give of her arms, and the warm scent of sweetness on her skin assaulting him until he was breathless. He still wasn’t used to people touching him. She pulled back before Jack could properly shut his jaw, and smiled at him. 

Beside him, hunched down small, Portia began to hum again. 

The Tsarina waved Jack forward as she practically danced back towards the arching doorway leading into a large room with a pearled floor. Jack glanced at Portia, but the girl didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on around her anymore. Her hum was one low, consistent note that reminded Jack of a whining animal. He frowned.

“Jack Frost!” That was the Tsar’s voice. 

With one last reluctant look at Portia, Jack jogged after the Tsarina to stand before the Tsar under the archway. He inclined his head and gave an awkward smile. “Your Highness.”

The Tsar grinned and waved a hand. “In here, it is Tsar Lunanoff, yes? You are a guest—no need for honoraries.”

Jack nodded after a moment and followed after the Tsar as he turned and strode into the ballroom, a few people scattered here and there beside gilded pillars and large stained glass windows between them. Most of them wore vibrant colors that glinted and shone in the light of the chandeliers, the women’s hair adorned with some variation of gold jewelry. 

Despite the event being labeled a ‘dance’, hardly anyone seemed to be paying attention to the soft music playing in the background.

The Tsar glanced back at Jack, eyes bright and happy. “This is just the High Nobles and a few other important people. I’ll formally introduce you once everyone else arrives—you’re not fashionably late, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry about that; if Portia hadn’t come to get me, I probably would’ve slept through the whole thing.” Jack laughed and rubbed the back of his neck to dispel the prickle of apprehension in his skin.

“Dear,” The Tsarina came up beside the Tsar and placed a hand on his arm. “Perhaps we should let Jack mingle on his own for a bit. Let him get used to the scene. I have a feeling that the poor boy isn’t used to all this.” She glanced at him, and his cheeks flushed violet. How could she tell? A smile curled her lips. “See? Come on, let us leave him to adjust.” With that, she swept the bemused Tsar off towards a cluster of other sparkly ladies.

Jack let out a breath when they left, relieved to be out from beneath the stare of the Tsarina. The woman was intense in a way that reminded him of Tooth. That intense stare that could see right through him... 

He ran a hand through his hair and rocked back on his heels. Deciding that he didn’t want to _adjust to the scene_ just yet, Jack made a point to avoid the clumps of people chatting and milling about, and kept to the dim space behind the pillars. He stopped beside a blue and yellow window to peer out of the little crowds from behind the pillar. Jack found himself curious, now that he out of sight of most of the guests.

Many of the men dressed in complimentary colors to the ladies, their suits tailored in odd shapes and silver ornaments hung from their shoulder pads and neck ties. One man was dressed in a midnight blue suit with tiny silver bells sown all over it. He jingled with every step.

“I wondered if this little party was about you,” A voice drawled from his right. Jack yelped and whirled around. “Seeing you creep around the sides makes me think that I was correct.” Pitch raised an eyebrow at him.

“You can’t just sneak up on people like that!” Jack whispered furiously, brow furrowed, even as his heart began thump wildly against his diaphragm. 

“I have a feeling that even if I approached you like a normal person, you would still run away.” Pitch flicked his eyes down Jack’s form and tipped his head curiously. “You’re afraid of me.”

“No I’m not,” Jack retorted automatically, but his grip on his staff tightened.

“I make you anxious, then.”

Jack gave Pitch a scowl and shrunk away from him, preparing to make an escape. Pitch’s lips twitched from where he stood, hands clasped behind his back and ostentatious golden coat making him seem larger than life. 

He tipped his head, brilliant golden eyes curious. “I’m surprise they let you in like that,” A pointed look at Jack’s bare feet. “You look like a vagabond.”

"So I've been told," Jack replied drily. He looked around at the crowds again amd raised an eyebrow when he noticed that there were no other soldiers there yet. "Why are you here? I'm gonna assume that you're a soldier, but there aren't anymore gilded coats out there."

"I'm the General," Pitch huffed and lifted his chin. Then he seemed to realize something, and with a faint quirk of displeasure in his face, he stepped forward and smoothly offered Jack a hand. "General Kozmotis Pitchiner. Pleased to make your aquaintence."

"Going on your facial expressions, I'm going to say you're lying," Jack said before he could stop himself. Then he blinked. "Wait-- _Kozmotis_?"

"You fled before I could introduce myself when we first met. Since I had your name, I thought it only fair that I give you mine."

"You concern yourself with what's fair, do you?"

Pitch's (Kozmotis? Pitchiner? Koz?...Pitch) eyes flashed, but before he could say anything else, a small ball of green and black crashed into Jack's side and knocked the breath out of him. Just as soon as he had been knocked down, the weight was gone and little feet were bouncibg in and out of his line of sight.

Emma's smiling visage beamed down at him as she hopped and twirled around. "Jack! Daddy said you might be here but I wasn't sure! I wanted to see you again." She abruptly stopped bouncing to give him an almost lethal look. "It's very rude to run away when someone tries to introduce you to their family."

Jack hefted himself up into a sitting position with a cough and a small smirk. He leaned forward like he was telling a secret. "It's nice to see you again too, Emma. But between you and me, your family is kinda scary."

"Daddy doesn't have many facial expressions," Emma agreed solemnly. "It can be disquittering sometimes."

"You mean disquieting?"

"Yes, that one," Emma stated imperiously, her nose upturned.

Jack chuckled.

The back of his neck prickled, and Jack glanced up to see Pitch studying him in a strange way, like Jack had done something particularly odd. It wasn't an angry look, or even a curious one, like before. It left him feeling like he had just passed some sort of test.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" The voice came from the front of the room, and Jack jolted when he realized it was the Tsar. "We have a very special guest with us tonight.!"

"Here we go," Jack grumbled as he stood and steeled himself to become the center of attention. What a novel. "Let's do this."

God help him.


	5. Little Talks

The Tsar smiled when Jack appeared from behind the pillars by his side. He swept a hand out to the hall, which had filled out in the time it had taken Jack to talk to Pitch— _General Kozmotis_ —and get mauled by Emma. There were a considerable amount of people dressed in black and gold now, and Jack thought he saw Warden Rega lingering near the back to speak to someone.

“I present to you, Jack Frost of Earth! He has traveled far to reach us in these difficult times, my friends. I must ask that you show him only the best of what Lune has to offer.”

A cheer went up then, a few people clinking glasses. The man in the belled suit was vigorously tinkling away as he clapped. Jack chuckled to himself, anxiety leeching away as he realized that no, perhaps these people were actually as nice as they seemed.

That was, of course, before the Tsar abandoned him to the masses.

The Tsarina swept him away again, and Jack was left with a mob of brightly colored nobles asking him all sorts of questions. None of them touched him, thank God, he didn’t think he could handle that—but they got really, really close. 

“What are those things on your tunic?”

“Is that really ice?”

“How are you floating like that?”

“Is it elemental magic? Could you teach it to someone else?”

“Why have you decided to visit?”

“Traveled far, they said. Have you seen the Living Darkness?”

The last one was spoken in a hush, and Jack had to speedily change the subject before he said something too incriminating. By the time that Jack managed to wrangle himself away from the crowd again, he was ready to crawl back in his makeshift hammock and sleep the night away. The fact that he woke up just an hour ago not withstanding.

Jack ducked and weaved and excused his way around a few more people before hiding behind a pillar again. Taking in a shuddery breath, Jack closed his eyes and tried to straighten out his hectic thoughts. They slowed along with his pulse the longer he stayed away from the questions and the stares of the guests. Being the center of attention was…jarring, to say the least. Definitely not as enjoyable as he’d thought it might have been. With a sigh, Jack opened his eyes and knocked his head back against the pillar. He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone coughed next to him. 

“Jack?” It was Emma.

“Emma! You snuck up on me,” Jack laughed weakly, hand pressed to his chest. “Got more from your dad than your eyebrows, huh?”

“Well, not on purpose,” She puffed out her cheeks in a pout. “I just saw you come over here and you didn’t look so good so I thought that I should come check on you.” 

Jack ran his hand through his hair and averted his eyes. “Heh, well thanks for—”

He cut himself off as he caught sight of a dark doorway hidden in the corner, a dim glow emitting from it. Something in his chest tugged harshly towards it, and Jack felt his feet take him over to the doorway without his permission. He was consumed by the abrupt, desperate need to follow the sensation in his chest, a loud ringing in his ears as he passed through the doorway and into a quieter, narrow hallway. 

“Jack? Where are you going?” The voice was warbled, as if calling to him through thick, murky water. It buzzed at him like a bothersome fly.

“It’s here,” He breathed, eyes wide as he ventured further away from the party and into the hallway. A dim blue light shone farther down, and he felt a deep seeded want to be immersed in it, like a child with a safety blanket. 

“What’s here? Jack? I don’t think we’re supposed to be down here…”

Jack ignored it and quickened his steps towards the light. Another set of smaller footsteps followed after him, hesitant. There was a stillness to this hall that reminded Jack of his revival. Nothing but the quiet of the trees, the chill of the ice, and the glow of the Moon. 

The light brightened the closer he got, until finally he stumbled over into it, turning to see a large opening in the wall. He blinked, disoriented all of a sudden. Jack put a palm to his head to try and steady himself. 

Beside him, Emma gasped. “The Night Gardens! Oh, Jack, I’ve always wanted to see these—they have the _prettiest_ flowers in all of Lune, and look at those lights! Nothing like the rest of the palace; I’ve seen almost every bit of it. But I could never find this place, even though Daddy told me that it was here.”

Before them was a large, walled in plot of black dirt, damp with evening moisture and open to the sky, which had darkened with night as the stars dimmed once more. But placed every so often along the walls, there were large, twinkling balls of pure blue light that shone brighter than any regular sconce or bulb could accomplish. The light glinted off the dew sprinkling the plants dotted through the plot, making them sparkle and shine. There was a small stone path that weaved through the yellow bushes and drooping flowers in a color Jack had never seen, and circled around a large glass fountain in the middle of it all.

Emma squatted down and hurriedly pulled off her shoes. She was practically vibrating with excitement as she skipped out into the gardens, wet soil between her toes and leaves in her fingers. 

The garden was indeed very pretty, but Jack found his gaze drawn back to the lights on the walls, something strange in his stomach as he looked at them. It made him feel weird, so he finally just tore his eyes from the garden altogether to look farther down the hallway. He blinked.

There, just to his left in a smaller, wider doorway than before, were those eyes that had been following Jack around ever since he’d arrived at the palace. Blue stared into silver, neither blinking for a long moment. Then the eyes vanished like they had the previous times, a flicker of white disappearing around the lip of the doorway. Jack jolted and lurched forward. “Hey—Hey, wait!”

Letting a small breeze skirt his ankles, Jack bounded after them, hurtling into the shadowy arch just in time to see that flash of white enter another room at the end of the chamber. Jack let the wind push at his heels to give his steps a bit more distance. He skidded to a stop near the other door, that strange pull in his chest coming back with a vengeance. Swallowing hard, Jack peeked his head carefully around the wall. 

“Hello?” He called uncertainly, only to stare at the sight before him.

“Hush and shush, Snowling,” A soft voice mused. “He is sleeping.” The owner of the voice looked up, big silver eyes meeting Jack’s once again. It was a boy, maybe a little younger than Jack, with white hair that stuck out in directions. He wore what looked like some sort of armor, bluish-gray and studded with brilliant crystals, a large spear tipped with the same crystal strapped across his back. He hovered slightly off the ground next to an ornate crib, one white gloved hand tucked beneath a head of auburn hair soothingly.

Jack’s eyes locked onto the baby, who he distantly realized must be the Tsarina’s son, and he drifted forward before he could think about it. He got the feeling that the other boy was some sort of guard, and yet he allowed Jack to approach the other side of the crib in silence. 

The little Tsarevich was the spitting image of his father, save for redness of his hair. A lone, golden curl fell between his closed eyes, down to his button nose. Jack was overcome with a rush of unbidden, all consuming _affection_ for the baby, and his heart lept into his throat. His hands tightened on his staff to try and smother the urge to pick the child up and cradle him close. The bizarreness of the whole situation had hooked Jack by the naval, and he felt faintly queasy.

“Who are you?” He croaked, glancing up at the boy across from him.

“Who are _you_?” He replied, head tilted and eyes narrowed slightly️. “You feel familiar, but you have no past here. You have a connection with Mėnulis, and yet you have never met him. I have never seen you before you came to the palace, and I feel like I _know_ you somehow.” He whispered, brows furrowed.

“There’s been a lot of unexplained emotions cropping up for me lately. Maybe a mental illness,” Jack rasped. He had most of his weight on his staff now, weary. “It’s probably contagious.”

The boy pursed his lips and began to rock the crib slowly with his other hand. “You see, I have no clue what a mental illness is, and yet I understand your sentence as if it were my own.” Before Jack could comment on how worrisome it was that he didn’t know what a mental illness was, the other boy continued. “I am Nightlight.”

Jack laughed under his breath. “My name’s Jack Frost. But I’m gonna guess you already knew that, since you’ve been stalking me for the past few days.”

Nightlight frowned down at the crib, unsettled. “I was making sure that you weren’t a threat to Mėnulis. But then I began to feel strange, and when I traced the feeling back to you, I got curious. You have an uncanny knack for knowing when I am near.”

“Yeah, it kinda feels like we’ve been playing the weirdest game of hide and seek ever for the past couple days.” 

“Oh!” Nightlight perked up, pointed ears flicking forward from beneath spiky white locks. He looked up at Jack with wide eyes. “I _love_ hide and seek! Nobody ever plays with me though, since most of the people I am around are too old for such things. I hold out hope for the day Mėnulis is old enough to understand games. But I suppose eventually he will grow too old to play games as well.” His ears fell back again.

“Nobody’s too old to play games,” Jack scoffed. “They just need to be knocked off their high horse first.” He twirled a tiny snowflake between his fingers, then sent it at Nightlight’s face. It landed on his nose, and Nightlight went cross-eyed trying to look at it.

“It feels like...fun,” Nightlight murmured. He looked at Jack in wonder. “You are fun.”

Jack blinked. “Uh, thanks.”

Nightlight shook his head, “Not—it’s in _there_.” He pointed at Jack’s chest. “You _are_ fun. Just like I am light. It is what makes you an individual. What makes you yourself.”

Reaching up to clutch the frosted fabric of his hoodie just over his heart, Jack swallowed. North had said something similar, hadn’t he? When he tugged at the fabric, his hand drifted just a bit too close to Nightlight’s, and a tingling sensation shot up his arm. Jack jolted, then looked down at where his hand rested, a few inches from Nightlight’s, which had recoiled slightly. 

Wide eyes, blue to silver and suddenly so, so similar, met over the crib. In an unspoken mutual curiosity, Jack untangled his fingers from his hoodie and slowly reached out as well. Nightlight turned his hand over and splayed his palm, arm locked straight. The tingling sensation rose into a sharp buzzing throughout his entire right side the closer his hand got to Nightlight’s. Jack hovered his hand over Nightlight’s, and hesitated. Beneath their hands, Mėnulis shifted and made a sleepy noise before stilling again. Jack twitched his hand back and stepped back away from the crib.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jack was normally all for bad ideas, but this...this felt bigger than that.

Nightlight dropped his hand as well. “Most likely not,” He looked back down at the crib and began to gently rock it again. “They will start to notice your absence soon. Perhaps it is time you returned to the party.”

“Yeah,” Jack mumbled. He felt unbalanced. Off center. He turned and meandered back over to the door he came through. “See ya around, Nightlight.” He tossed a wave and a half-hearted smile over his shoulder before walking out.

“Until the stars align, Jack Frost.” Nightlight whispered after him, just out of earshot.

Jack walked along the hall, back towards the _other_ secret hall, and caught wind of Emma’s voice talking to someone up ahead. Oh, right. He’d left her alone in a strange place she’d never been in before. Guardian of the year everybody. Jack grimaced.

He quickened his pace until the glow of the Night Gardens threw shadows over the walls. Jack hooked his fingers around the arch and slung himself out of the hall—

—And straight into Pitch. (Er, Kozmotis.)

Jack bounced off the man’s chest like a rubber ball and staggered backwards, arms pinwheeling through the air in attempt to keep his balance. A hand clasped tightly around his wrist and wrenched him forwards again. Kozmotis was glowering down at him, eyebrow raised, but Jack was really starting to think that the glower was a permanent fixture on Kozmotis’ face and that he shouldn’t think much of it. But all of that was background noise to the fact that the man _hadn’t let go of his wrist_.

Normally, Jack startled at being touched anyway, but this felt different. It wasn’t like when the Tsarina had hugged him, or even moments before when his hand had almost brushed Nightlight’s. The hand around his wrist was _searing_ , Jack could feel it in his bones. Like lightning had been shot through his hand and into his meridians. It shook him deeply, the well of power in his chest that _was_ winter rattling around excitedly. Without his permission, ice crackled out from his skin and encased Kozmotis’ hand up to the wrist, sealing their limbs together.

Jack yelped. “Fuck! Sorry!”

Kozmotis cursed under his breath and yanked at the ice, but ended up just taking Jack’s arms with him. He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. “Does this happen often?”

“Totally,” Jack drawled. “I ice myself to strangers all the time.”

“No need to be cheeky,” Kozmotis tipped his head. “I wouldn’t think that you would consider me a stranger.” Jack froze. “We’ve been properly introduced now, after all.” Kozmotis continued.

“Yeah, well,” Jack croaked, deflated. “I consider people strangers until I know their favorite color, so…” His eyes were inevitably drawn back to the mound of ice still encasing their hands. The heat of Kozmotis’ palm seemed to be frying Jack’s brain. He felt all frazzled, like the touch was scrambling his thoughts like a broom to a flock of birds. 

Kozmotis frowned. “That is a...peculiar stipulation.”

“It’s Friendship 101, Pitch, don’t ya know?” Jack snarked absently, thoroughly distracted. He reached over with his other hand to tap his staff to the chunk of ice locking them together.

“Pitch?”

The innocent inquiry jolted Jack, so much so that even though the ice puffed away into dusty snow, frost immediately raced up Kozmotis’ arm directly after. Jack quickly jerked himself away from him, spooked. “Shit, sorry! Again, I…” He clutched his staff tighter and averted his eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Kozmotis shook out his arm with a huff, but he didn’t seem too annoyed. He ran his fingertips over the frost curiously. “...I don’t have a favorite color.”

Jack blinked owlishly at him. “Of course you don’t.”

“I do!” A voice crowed from their left. Both of them jumped. Jack turned to see Emma, standing barefoot on the lip of the glass fountain with her hands on her hips like a pioneer. “I like green!” She called with a grin as she looked over the gardens.

“Awesome. Consider us friends, Miss Emily!” Jack called back with a chuckle, the tension in his back slowly releasing. 

“Best friends! And it’s Emma to you!”

“But of course,” Jack bowed theatrically towards her, a slight twitch of his staff enough to ice the fountain behind her and sprawl frost out around it in the dirt. She flailed her hands excitedly and spun to slide her heels around the ice in the center.

Kozmotis was side-eyeing him. “You’re good with her.”

Jack straightened back up and shrugged. “I relate more to kids than adults. I like playing with them; they’re much more fun.” He glanced at Kozmotis with a faint smirk. “Adults tend to be too stuffy.”

Scoffing, Kozmotis turned his attention back to his daughter as she skated over the frozen fountain. His entire face softened, rigid posture relaxed. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I apologize for my earlier rudeness. It was not my place to interrogate you when you have seemingly done nothing wrong.”

“Well, I did faceplant into your daughter’s garden. I figure I’d be pretty paranoid too if it were me.” Jack conceded.

“You did not come here of your own will, did you?” Kozmotis asked quietly. “Though that is what they’re telling everybody. I saw the panic in your face when you did not recognize where you were—not to mention the fact that with the Darkness blocking us in, it would have been nigh impossible for you to arrive here unscathed.” 

“I was kind of launched here? By a magical hurricane?” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “I-I know how weird that sounds, but…” He shrugged sheepishly.

“Not the strangest thing someone has said to me,” Kozmotis assured him with a small, _small_ smile.

Jack smiled back, unabashed.

Golden eyes flickered down, then back up after a moment. Kozmotis looked away. His shoulders straightened imperiously, and his chin raised, as if shedding his relaxed demeanor and replacing it with the cold facade Jack had met and argued with earlier. 

Frowning, Jack swung his staff up to rest across his own shoulders. “You know, you’re not as bad as I thought you were.”

Because, yeah, Jack may have met Pitch Black (who might as well have been called Bitch Black), but this...this wasn’t Pitch. This was Kozmotis Pitchiner. Something had to have happened between now and then to cause him to change, something big. A man who was able to look at a child—his _daughter_ —with such overwhelming fondness could not be Pitch. At least, not in his entirety.

Kozmotis raised an eyebrow at him, but the hard edge his face had regained softened somewhat in pleased bemusement. “They’re probably wondering where you ran off to. You should rejoin the party.”

“Are you coming? You’re the General, right? They’ll notice if you just up and disappear.”

“Yes, but unlike you I am not the focus of this event. It’s well known that I have a strong dislike for these things, so me disappearing won’t be very surprising.”

“So everyone knows you’re socially inept?” Jack grinned. Kozmotis shot him a glare, and he laughed. “Relax! It’s not like I’m any better. I’ve been away from people too long to be good with large crowds. Especially when they can see me.” The last part he added under his breath, but Kozmotis frowned like he heard anyway.

“It sounds like you want me to shield you from the curious masses.”

Jack shrugged sheepishly. “Hey man, you’re tall enough. Plus you’ve got that awesome sword,” He nodded at the glint of metal in the shadows of Kozmotis’ coat. “I have faith that you could keep them at bay with that glower of yours alone, though.”

A moment of contemplative silence, and then a heavy sigh gusted its way out of Kozmotis’ lips. “If you insist.” He turned his gaze back towards the Night Gardens, Emma skating around the fountain with bare feet. “Emily Jane! Come on, darling, you can play at a later date. It’s time we rejoined the festivities.”

Emma hung off the frozen arch of water in the middle of the fountain with a whine. “Aw! Promise I can come back?”

“Of course. You know where it is now, after all, I doubt I could keep you away if I tried.” Kozmotis grumbled.

Emma made a high-pitched noise of excitement, then slid around the fountain to try and bound off of it towards the hall. Only, running on ice is never a very good idea, as Jack knew from experience, and Emma slipped and almost smacked her head onto the lip of the glass fountain. Jack’s eyes widened and he hurriedly dropped his foot into the damp soil of the gardens, ice racing out and catching Emma into a slide before she could bust open her face.

She yelped and went soaring down the slide, through the loop Jack couldn’t resist adding, and slid out at the end, next to Jack’s ankle. Wide green eyes blinked up at him, and Emma shook off her shock to push herself back up to her feet. “Thank you.”

Jack hummed and tapped the crook of his staff to the ice slide. It puffed away into diamond dust and glittered against the dirt. “No problem. Just be a bit more careful, yeah?”

A glance at Kozmotis showed that he had gone several shades paler in the last few moments. He gathered Emma close to him and began to methodically check her over for any damage. Seeing none, he gave Jack a grateful nod and clasped Emma’s hand firmly in his own. “Shall we?”

Bowing dramatically to make Emma giggle, Jack smirked. “Lead the way.”


End file.
